a loser

When I post my writings and images, I don’t know when to quit working on them. They never seem good enough. Never, ever, perfect.
I reread, edit, google, spell-check, crop in different ways, sharpen more, blur a little and color-enhance.
“Hmmm. This is pretty good, isn’t it? I don’t know what else to do anyway…”
My hand shakes and I feel nauseous when I click “publish.”
Once in awhile, I look at them nodding my head, “Not so bad.”
Once in a blue moon, I convince myself, “I am a genius.”
Most of the time, they are close to what I had in my head, but not quite.
I am such a loser.

Like this:

13 thoughts on “a loser”

Excuse me for interrupting your self-flagellation, but it is one of the hardest things about writing to know when it is DONE. This is true with painting, too. Most people either quit too soon or, if they are perfectionists like you (and, uh-oh, me), they work and work and work and work on a piece until it is absolutely/completely/totally DEAD. So, good for you for writing this blog. EVENTUALLY, the hour comes when you can no longer chew on your day’s post and you must send it out. Yes, I am sure you could still revise it a hundred different ways, and many of them of them would be excellent. But the piece you finish and publish is always better than the piece you can’t stop working on and that no one ever sees. (Take it from me — still working on a book I started 30 years ago, ha!)

I think I AM a true loser because I’d rather compromise than struggle, turning to such convenient excuses as “The perfection is the enemy of the good.” (Voltaire) and “I’d rather be roughly right than precisely wrong.” (John Maynard Keynes).
Lingo-Field (Sendai, Miyagi, Japan)

Remember the 80/20 rule as it applies to writing: 80% of your results will be produced in 20% of the time and effort you invest. Those are NOT convenient excuses you are employing so you can set down your burden — they are the truth. I can tell you are a literary person, but I don’t think you work in the city room of a daily newspaper, because then you would have become accustomed to the need to compromise every day. In that context, you cannot struggle beyond the time when your deadline has arrived and your newsroom editor is standing there at your shoulder, tapping his foot, waiting for your copy. Under those circumstances, keeping your job trumps perfection every time.

I can’t help myself, I have to leave just one more comment. This one takes the form of a rule, which normally I despise, but I promise it will support you in your writing: When you are writing, just write; when you are editing, just edit. In other words, do not try to do both at the same time, constantly looking back to the sentence or paragraph you last wrote in order to figure out what is wrong with it. It’s fine! Go on and keep writing. And, btw, you ARE doing fine with your work. Your follower Raspberry said it very nicely: “simple and honest and they tug on my heartstrings.”

If your work as posted on this blog is losing, can I join the loser club? Our life shows up in the stuff we create. The work that exposes an artist’s humanity can be the most moving. Our imperfection is also our uniqueness. I enjoy and admire your work Nelkumi-san. You express your vulnerability with humility and grace. I need to learn from you. Thank you for sharing with us.